The Dropship Unlocked Podcast

Q&A Special: Celebrating 100 Episodes with Your Top Questions (Episode 100)

• Lewis Smith & James Eardley • Season 1 • Episode 100

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📞 Ready to Take the Next Step? https://dropshipunlocked.com/training-watch-apply?el=podcast-100-q&a-special


🗣In this milestone episode of the Dropship Unlocked Podcast, Lewis Smith and James Eardley celebrate their 100th episode by answering the most pressing and common questions from their community. 


From insights on starting a dropshipping business to tips on balancing work and personal life, this special Q&A session is packed with actionable advice and expert guidance. 


👉 Prefer to watch this on Youtube? Check it out here  ➡️ https://youtu.be/QzfCJwE4w-s


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Topics Discussed:


★ Balancing Work and Personal Life: Delegating tasks and hiring the right team. Calendar management and setting boundaries. Learning to love the journey and having a mission-driven focus.


★ Daily Habits for Success: Importance of daily visualisation and affirmations. Reviewing and refining goals regularly.


★ Common Mistakes New Entrepreneurs Make: Choosing the wrong niche and relying on low-quality suppliers. Ignoring search-intent marketing and not validating the business fundamentals.


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Links and Resources Mentioned:

Pick up a copy of Lewis’ book: https://htabook.com 

Get Shopify for £1 a month for 3 months: https://www.dropshipunlocked.com/shopify 

Get a free trial with a professional phone line: https://www.dropshipunlocked.com/circle 

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Key Takeaways:


★ Supplier Quality Equals Business Quality: The quality of your suppliers directly impacts your business's success. Focus on high-quality, reliable suppliers to ensure customer satisfaction and sustainable growth.


★ Delegation is Key: Balancing work and personal life is possible by delegating tasks and building a solid team. This allows you to focus on strategic growth and enjoy your personal time.


★ Start with Data-Driven Decisions: When choosing a niche or product, rely on data rather than emotions. Validate your choices to ensure there's a market demand.


★ Customer Service is Your Brand: Providing exceptional customer service is essential in dropshipping. It builds trust, encourages repeat business, and sets you apart from competitors.

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Thank you for listening to the Dropship Unlocked Podcast! Don't forget to subscribe and leave a review on your favourite podcast platform.


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★★★Dropship Unlocked - Lewis Smith★★★

🌏Watch Our Free Training ➽ https://www.dropshipunlocked.com/training?el=podcast-100-q&a-special

Welcome everybody to a very special episode of the dropship unlocked podcast, our 100th episode. We could hardly believe we've hit this incredible milestone, and we definitely, definitely couldn't have done it without you, the person listening or watching us right now. So to celebrate, we're doing something a little bit different today. This episode is all about you and the questions you have been sending it. That's right. Lewis, 100 episodes. It's a massive milestone that we're both very proud of. So it's great to get to this stage. And like you say, to mark the 100th episode, we are going to do a Q, a special something that we did as well for episode 50, and it went down really well. So these type of milestone episodes will dedicate to answering some of the top questions that we've had in today, we're going to dive deep into the answers. Some of that will be quite revealing, and some that will be quite interesting if you've got the same goals as US of building really successful e commerce businesses. So if you're just starting out, or if you actually got a business up and running already, there's questions in this that have been sent in by you, either by email, youtube comments or emails that we've received to the inboxes that we've got, we've put them all together and gathered 10 of our best questions to get them answered on today's episode. Yeah, we're thrilled to have you here with us for this milestone episode today. So get ready for some actionable insights and expert tips and maybe even a few surprises along the way. So let's dive into your questions. You welcome to the dropship unlocked Podcast. I'm Lewis Smith, the founder of dropship unlocked, and with me is our client success coach, James earthley. Now when we're not recording the podcast episodes. We're running our own e commerce businesses and helping aspiring entrepreneurs launch their own high ticket dropshipping businesses. Keen to build your own six or even seven bigger business, my book, the home turf advantage is your blueprint for launching a profitable online store. Grab your copy@htabook.com today, and let's get you started. Now, sit back, relax, and let's unlock your potential with the dropship unlocked podcast. Fantastic. So let's go straight in. Daniel had the first question for you today, Lewis, so I'll present this across to you. So Daniel's asked, What is the biggest lesson that you've learned from your journey in E commerce that you wish you had known when you'd first started? Wow, yeah, there's, there are so many. It's very difficult to pinpoint the one lesson. I'd say, there's, there's probably a few things that that you can consider and then prioritize as you choose, right? So the first one would be a supplier selection, supplier quality and and ultimately, product quality as a result of that, I think that that's paramount to your success. If you're selling kind of really low quality, low value items from suppliers that offer poor service to customers, ultimately, it's you that's going to bear the brunt of those poor reviews, that that negative feedback from customers, that that's paramount, that really kind of is the backbone of your business, the suppliers that you partner with, the other that I learned fairly early on managed to recover from but was a significant learning in my journey was cash flow management, managing your cash, making sure that you're not overspending and that you're setting aside money for taxes, for VAT for corporation tax, and even money that you're withdrawing from your business, you're setting aside enough for your personal income tax bill as well to ensure that you don't get caught short when HMRC come knocking and asking for 50% of next year's tax bill contribution upfront as well. So these are things that people don't really tell you about early on in your journey, and certainly if you're not working with specialists in the UK, and you're kind of learning business through YouTube from America, these laws and regulations and things are different, so we've got to know those things. And I think the other thing that I would say is, don't try to do it all yourself. Find people who are better at the things you need them to do than than you are, so you can succeed faster. Don't be too proud in your own ability to accept help where you need it. It's been a huge shortcut for me, bringing in team members, bringing in experts in their field, not necessarily full time. They can come in just on a freelance basis to help. But for example, if I was going to revamp one of my Shopify store themes and make it way higher, converting faster, better. I could spend years trying to learn to do that myself, or I could pay a few 100 pounds for an incredible specialist to come in and just blitz it in, you know, a few weeks, and then it's done. And that, you know, the return on investment in having done that so that I can spend that same time focusing on other projects, other areas, without having to, like, learn all the skills myself necessarily. I know that the big picture of what I want to achieve, but, yeah, not trying to do it all myself was a big lesson for me. So I've tried to condense as many of these lessons. Because you can hear, I can't even pick one, even in this Q A session, there are so many. I've tried to condense these. And I. Mean, I've put them into my trademark home turf advantage business model now, and that's probably the single thing. If I had to pinpoint one thing, it's the home turf advantage business model that's made the biggest impact on my success and also on the hundreds of other members that we have in our program who've launched their business using our home turf advantage model as well. Yeah, exactly. Lewis, I mean, once you made it a step by step program for people to follow, that certainly helped me a lot. And I wish I'd found dropship unlocked earlier, because when you talk about how important supplier quality is, I also learned that the hard way, by initially doing the traditional drop shipping with Aliexpress suppliers with products on the other side of the world, when you've got poor supplier quality, poor product quality. It actually leads to poor business quality for yourself, because you are quite reliant on the quality of suppliers that we sign and the experience that our customers get so massive things to pull away from that answer Lewis that people can implement straight away and don't go too far down the wrong path before getting that right. Cool. So next question for you, Lewis is in from Gregory, and he's asked, How do you balance work and personal life while running multiple businesses? Yeah, this is another big one. Early in my journey, I was working pretty much around the clock. I was answering customer voicemails late at night, even while I was traveling around the world. You know, I was looking at my phone and rehousing I've got a voicemail nipping out the room, taking them in the middle of the night. And after a while, I realized that, again, me trying to do everything just wasn't sustainable. And I think the turning point for me really came when I first hired a virtual assistant, and I realized, wow, like that. That decision to do that not only increased our sales significantly, but it also, more importantly, freed up my time to then be able to focus on the real strategic growth decisions and enjoy my personal life as well. And, you know, take an afternoon off every now and then. So I think delegation, if I had to summarize, it, was the key to achieving work life balance. Hiring the right people allows you to step back from the day to day operations and really focus on growth while enjoying more personal time. So that's difficult at the beginning, and there will be some late nights, some early mornings, of you trying to fit the business building process in before you have the funds to be able to hire a virtual assistant at the beginning, you will have to front load that work. But the way I always viewed it was, is it worth six months of pain now for a lifetime of freedom, or do I just want a lifetime of pain having to work for someone else for the entire time, never controlling where I can go, my autonomy, my location, freedom, my finances. I'd much rather work hard for six months and get it done to the point where I can bring in a virtual assistant and take a step back from the business. So that would be the first thing, I think. The other is just bringing in virtual assistants doesn't work unless you have the right systems in place. So putting solid systems tested processes automation. So automate whatever you can. Don't force a human to do it just because they can. If a computer can do it, if Zapier can do it, or an automation can do it, and you can connect two systems together so it happens independently of human involvement. Fantastic. Do that, because then the humans that you hire can do the things that humans do best, right? With that said, bringing on board the best team when it is time to say, right, who am I going to bring into my team? If you haven't hired someone before, that might be a little nerve wracking, and you might not want to bring someone in full time at first. That can be freelance. You could bring someone in on a freelance basis, but when you do, provide the best in class training on systems and processes, give them absolutely everything you can and allow them to eventually step in and fix issues without having to always ask you permission. It's a couple of things, couple of phrases that spring to mind. They say, hire, slow, fire, fast. You know, once you've hired someone, it's difficult to reverse that. I mean, it's not difficult to reverse the decision, but you don't want to have to let someone go, if you can avoid it, right? But if you just are very selective from the outset about who you're bringing in, and then you train them incredibly well, and then you allow them the autonomy to make their own decisions. You watch those individuals, IQ rocket. You know, people are often capped at the level to which they think they're allowed to make decisions, and it comes a point where they think, oh, that's above my head. I can't do that. But, but if you, as the business owner, say to them, what if it wasn't above your head? What if you were in charge of that decision? What would you do? What if it was your business and suddenly they kind of feel this sense of empowerment that maybe a previous boss hasn't given them, and you can stagger this, you can staircase to this. You don't have to give them full autonomy and control on day one, but once they prove themselves, you can start to relinquish control to them and say, Well, I trust you. I trust you if it's less than I think. Tim Ferriss thing is like, if it's less than$100 or $500 to fix, then do it and tell me about it later. Don't ask for permission. So that would be the next thing, bringing in a team, great processes, great systems. The other more practical things would be, and this is for balancing work with lifestyle. How? Calendar management sounds simple, but everything I do is on paper, in a calendar or not on paper, on a digital calendar. And yeah, for example, I stop work at 5pm I block out the calendar like at that point there are no appointments booked into my calendar. Likewise, I don't typically start until about 9am because before 9am I'm up maybe at 6am doing a workout, going to the gym, going for a run, taking my children to nursery, going to get a coffee, like spending some time with the family. That that time is my own, and I protect that time, just like I protect the time during the day as well. So I think that's key. And then the hours between nine to five, it might sound like, well, you left a nine to five job. You now have your own business, but now what? You just work nine to five as well. And there's a distinction here. I do that because I choose to do that now, and that's within my control. So if you can learn to love the journey and love what you do, and you have a mission that you're striving for, and even better, if you can enroll your team into that mission with you, and so you're all on this mission together. It actually becomes really exciting. And you know the expression they say, If you love your work, you'll never work a day in your life. Well, if you can create that. And we see people in our dropship unlocked community, chatting to each other, talking. You can feel the passion. People in there aren't slogging away doing it because they have to. They're doing it because they choose to, and they get to, and that's a massive distinction. So you can work long hours if you want to, but if you're working towards a mission that you and your team and family believe in, then it won't even feel like work as you're doing it. So that's how I find the work life balance exactly. I mean, the balance question goes out the window a little bit when you start to enjoy the work that you're doing, there starts to be a bit of a fuzzy area between the two, where actually you don't need to feel like you have to get away from work to have life. You can enjoy your work. But at the same time, you've got those things in place to make sure that sometimes you're all in to work, and other times you're all into being off work, which is something I've had to implement for myself as well to make sure that I can run multiple businesses as well as live a personal life and still not be fully working all the time. What's dangerous is if something I've found is if you try and do both at the same time. So if you're at a dinner table, you're checking your phone, that's a dangerous place to be in, because you're not actually doing either very well. You're not working well, and you're not enjoying yourself very well out for a meal either, either you're all in at work or you're all out of work, and that way you can enjoy both things. It's been a big thing for me as well. Okay, so next question for you, Lewis is in from Saqib, and he's asked, what is one book or resource that has been or has made the biggest impact on your entrepreneurial journey? Yeah, I think the big one for me. And it sounds cliche, but it just was, you can't change how your journey begins. Can you? Was the four hour work week by Tim Ferriss, and that was a real game changer for me. I think it was that book that opened my eyes. After reading that book, I completely shifted my approach to business, just in general, because I was working a job at the time that I read it, and it introduced me, for the first time ever, to the concept of drop shipping and ultimately, lifestyle design as the the bigger overarching goal. Lifestyle design through business. So using business as a mechanism to design the lifestyle that you want so that you're you don't just work around your business, your business fits around the lifestyle that you want. And so this led me to the transition from my initial idea of creating a healthcare app, because I was working in the medical device industry at the time, and, you know, I kind of just fell into the trap of, okay, I'll just do what I I know, and I'll work in this sector and try and create something that ultimately there wasn't that much of a need for. But I learned a lot through doing that, and it led me through to exploring e commerce, and specifically drop shipping, with a focus on creating a business that supports my desired lifestyle. That was the important bit really figuring out what do I want from life? I'm not going to wait until retirement until I can kind of live the life that I want. What do I want from life now? And how can I create a business that enables that? And so the right resources can completely change your perspective and open up new possibilities that you haven't considered before. And for me, the four hour work week was where it all began. Yeah, in the same for me, I had a revelation coming across the concept of lifestyle design for the first time, and suddenly feeling like I had the power to actually decide how my lifestyle looked. It wasn't dependent on the job that you had. That was not the identity that you had to build just because you had a certain job. Breakthrough, absolutely breakthrough. And that resource, as well as a few others that are mentioned as well, the E Myth is a great book as well that taught me about viewing a business as a process or a money making machine was huge as well. So I could make my business into a process. And again, that ties into the lifestyle design, because I want to run businesses that allow me to live my dream lifestyle. So couple of great resources there, and thank you for your questions. Zakim, next up is a question in from Zach. So Zach has asked, What daily habit or practice Do you credit most for your success? Wow, hard to pinpoint one. If I had to pick an overarching one, it would probably be raising my standards or raising the standards of my team and and myself, and that's in all areas of life. But I guess in the concept of the context of business. For example, if we choose a goal as a team and we say, this is the goal, this is what we're trying to achieve as a business, we don't just kind of half heartedly go into it. We execute that goal to as high a standard as we possibly can. And notice, I say, execute it. We don't stall in perfectionism. We don't say we want it to be the best it can possibly be, but we've been working on it for seven months now, and it's still not launched. Instead, we create an MVP, get it out there, and then we iterate to make it better and better and better until it meets our standards. We don't put things out that we're not proud of, that as a team, we're not happy to stand behind. And I think that would, that would be the big thing, you know, how that comes about, and if, if I had to put it into a daily practice, it's probably visualization, it's, it's initially, probably the thing that, after reading the four hour work week really changed my, like, neural wiring as an entrepreneur, you know, that just completely changed the way I think my paradigm through which I view the world, it was daily visualization and the recital of personalized affirmations. So affirmations I'd pre written about my goals, about the things I wanted to achieve in life, the things that I was most proud of, most grateful for, the memories that I had. And then it's, I mean, it's something that we've now baked into week one of our program, for a reason, because it works. If you can design your own goals and then every day verbally recite them and live them and feel them as if you've already achieved those goals, it unlocks something within you that allows you to be the kind of person that has already achieved those goals, and you start taking the actions day by day of someone who has achieved those goals. If you say to yourself, I'm a successful business owner with a and I'm a supportive dad, and I am there for my family, and I'm proud of my team, and I give them autonomy, and I make my company a great place to work. Suddenly, during that day, you will have a decision junction that you're hit, where you think, Well, I am a good father, and I do look after my family, so I better make the decision in favor of my family here, or a team member might come to you, or you might be leading a team meeting. And you might think I said earlier today, when I was doing my affirmations, that I'm a a great we have a great team, and it's a great place to work, and therefore you try to create that and you you make you embody that visualization. So this doesn't necessarily happen in the way I just said it. This all happens in like a split second, but every time you're making those micro decisions over time, they're weighted in the favor of the goals that you now believe to be true already, even if they're not on what happens after a while, those actions start to create the results and those goals do start to become true. And if I look back at the goals that I created and set for myself back when I first started this journey in like 2017 I've surpassed all of them now, and so you have to keep resetting those goals. Because when you see that something works as powerfully as this, this daily practice, we call it the destination and the why inside our program, in week one, it's the most powerful bit. And yeah, it's such a shame that sometimes people kind of skip over that stuff and think I don't need the mindset stuff. I just need the the technicals. Because without that, the rest of it just doesn't work in the long term. So yeah, that's probably the daily practice that's had the most impact on my journey. What about you, James, yeah, I mean, I mean, that's fascinating, because I was going to say a similar thing, actually, visualization, affirmations, they they work, but they only work once you've seen that they work. I think a lot of people just want to breeze over them and say that it's not actually reality doesn't make a difference to your goals until it works for you. And then you realize how important it can be because think it's because we want to be so consistent. And if we've told ourselves at the start of the day that we are a certain way and we are going to achieve certain goals, then by being so confident that you're going to be consistent with what you've said, it then changes your actions. And it's the actions that you then take leads to the results that you want to get. So I've had a very similar journey in terms of those daily practices. The biggest one for me, though, right now that makes a big difference to my success is I'll review my goals daily. The reason for that is because I found that I used to set goals for myself, have a day of goal setting or a morning of goal setting for the month ahead, and I wouldn't actually revisit the goals that I'd set for myself until the end of the month, and I look back and remembered the goals that I had set. And so it's easy to do that you set a goal, and if you don't review them frequently, you forget that you'd even set them the first place. And how can you achieve something if you don't remind yourself of a goal that you'd set? So I found there's a big. Correlation between how often I looked at my goal, and that was very highly correlated with how often I achieved that goal. So now I'll make it something I do every morning is review that the goal was that I'd set for myself for the month and for the quarter and for the year, just to continually check in with that and remind myself of what it is I want to achieve. So the more I do that, the more likely I achieve goals. So that's been a big one for me. Okay, so next question is in from Lexi, and she has asked, What are the most common mistakes that new entrepreneurs make when starting a drop shipping business, and how can they avoid them? Probably the most common is choosing the wrong niche. Entrepreneurs often select a niche based on personal interest rather than market demand, which is what matters? Is it in demand. And so it's crucial to validate your niche with data driven research to ensure that there is a market there in the first place. So they'll often come to us and people, people will come to us and say, so I already have my website. It's, you know, it's all set up. All I need from you guys is the UK suppliers. Can you just give me the UK suppliers? And it's interesting. We take one look at their website and their niche, and it's just clear that they're going to really, really struggle, because maybe they've picked to be like a generalist store and just sell everything under the sun, or they've picked a niche that's just not validated. It's not going to be profitable. They're not going to find going to find enough suppliers, it's going to be really seasonal, like there's all these reasons why it won't work, or it may work, but to a very low, low bar. And it's why that in dropship unlocked, we go back to the basics and the fundamentals inside week two of our program in in niche selection, the other mistake people make is relying on low quality suppliers, which can lead to poor customer experiences. So if you can focus on finding reliable, high quality suppliers, it will avoid so many issues down the line for you. And so that's that's definitely another one that kind of ties into having picked the wrong niche. Often you pick the wrong niche, therefore you end up with these low quality suppliers, and then customers don't like their experience and you don't really have a brand. The other though, and these are all kind of symptoms of an earlier problem, is ignoring the importance of search intent marketing. The amount of times I've heard someone come to us and say, I don't really need your full program, because I already have my site, I already have suppliers, and I'm actually running ads already. It's just that I've been running ads for a few months now and I've not made any sales. And it like this is the thing, if you're in that position, or if you're thinking that you might end up in that position, just try to internalize this bit and reframe where you're at, because the ads not working is a symptom. Is not the cause of your issue. The cause of the issue is the fundamentals of the business on which you've built are not solid. The niche maybe hasn't been validated. The suppliers aren't proven. The items you selling are not in demand. The websites may be not set up in a way to maximize conversions of visitors who are already looking to buy the items that you're selling. You know, we're not trying to convince cold traffic that we target with Facebook ads or Instagram or Tiktok ads on social media to come off the platform to your site and buy a product instead with the home turf advantage model. We we kind of intercept customers at the point where they are ready to buy, or they're, they're very interested in this. They're actively searching. You know, that's why we call it search intent marketing. They have an intention to buy. They're they're looking, they're high commercial intent customers. And so we just take our share of the sales at that point, if you find a really in demand market, you don't need all the sales in that market. You just need a tiny fraction of them, a small slice of the pie to build 100,000 pound per year business with just a small share of a proven market with in demand products. And then that way, you're not having to generate demand and create all of this noise to showcase your products and try to get people to come and have a look at it instead they're just coming to you. There's, it's almost like there's a queue of people, and you just set up a stand at the front of the queue so that they can just choose to come to you if they want to. And there's lots of ways we can convert people and get them to choose you instead of a competitor. But that's, that's a different topic. But yeah, those are probably the main things. Yeah, and I fell into a lot of those traps, those that are so common that you've highlighted there. So I'm glad that you've shared these so people can avoid them. But the thing, the main takeaway for me, for that was, when you think you've identified the issue, like it's the ads or it's the website, what it often is, is the business foundations that it's been built on top of is not right. And the last thing you want to do if your ads aren't converting, or if your website is not proven to convert, is to throw loads of money and loads of ad spend to get more traffic to the site, to a site that isn't converting. So what I needed to do is step back when I was running Facebook ads and my site wasn't converting, and think back right to the take a few steps back to then spring. Forward, those steps back were checking the suppliers that I assigned, checking the products that I was selling. Were they actually in demand? Was I actually fix fixing a need? Was there actually a need for it in the market? That was key came across the home server advantage with you, Lewis, and suddenly I realized that my foundations were very weak, and no wonder my ads weren't selling. Okay, so next up with a question for the call today on this episode is Mark. So Mark's question he's asked, in your experience, Lewis, what is the most effective way to research and validate a niche before launching a drop shipping store, we have a niche validation set of criteria that I actually set out in my book, the home turf advantage. So we validate a niche which we can define as a group of products, or a market that we're going to serve, and that's through nine different criteria. So the first would be average price. So the average price of the products across all of the different suppliers and retailers and items that we're considering selling, we want a nice, high average price so that we can get a good, high profit per sale, and we're talking upwards of probably 300 pounds, so that you can make on a 30% margin, you make maybe 100 pounds in profit on a sale like that. But actually, the higher they go, the more profit you'll make on every sale. Search demand would be the next one. So this is like, are the items being searched for actively by customers? And we can use tools to analyze this and assess this level of search demand, but that effectively tells you, if you're going to create your stand at the front of the queue, how long's the queue, or is there even a queue, you know, and that's that it equates to, is there a search demand there? We don't want to be trying to drum up interest. We just want a queue of people looking to buy the items. The next is, what's the seasonality of the business, and is it trending down? So we don't want something that's kind of going out of fashion or only spikes at a certain time of year. Ideally, we want a nice, long term stable business that's year round stable, and the other would be brand domination. So we don't want a niche that is dominated by brands. If I'm going to pick a niche, I'm probably not going to pick, you know, computer monitors to sell and be up against Sony and Panasonic and LG and apple. And you know, if those are the suppliers that I want to supply me as a first time beginner, it's very unlikely that those are going to work with me, the number of suppliers would be another one. So if I picked a niche which isn't brand dominated, and meets the other criteria, how many drop shipping suppliers are there? Are there only two I can find? In which case my whole business is success is contingent on me signing those two suppliers? Or are there 1520 in which case, if I get five of them, great. I have a business, you know, with all of these are designed to maximize your chances of success the first time, not to get it wrong, realize the mistake, and then have to come and redo it. Like these have all been hard learned lessons from mistakes we've made in the past. The next would be, is it a passionate market? And I don't mean, are you passionate about the market. I mean, could people be passionate about the market? You know, if you're selling washing machines and tumble dryers, it's unlikely you're going to have a group of raving fans that you could create hype around, and, you know, create lots of materials that market the products nicely to them, whereas, if they're really fascinated in the products and there's this kind of cult following, then perhaps that will make it easier for you to market it. The next would be price consistency. So this isn't so much average price point, because we've already covered that one, but this is all the products priced consistently across the different retailers, because we don't want to be the the ones selling a product at RRP and everyone else is undercutting us, and so therefore we can't compete on price. We want a nice, stable, consistent price point across suppliers of the same product, or across retailers of the same product the next one. And these are kind of all absolute musts. But you know, the more of these you can tick, the better. Now, the majority of brands in the niche that you're looking in selling directly to customers themselves. If they are, you're going to be competing with the actual brand itself, and so you've got a bit of a job in your hands there to try and pull people away from buying it from the brand's website and buying it from yours. There are ways we can do it, and I know we both work in the niches that we're in and with suppliers who do actually sell directly, and we make sales of their products every single day of the week. And so it's not a an absolute necessity, but it does help. If the majority of your suppliers use retailers, ie us, as their route to market, then it just levels the playing field, doesn't it? We're just one of the retailers that the final thing would be, if you've ticked all of these other boxes, or most of them, can you find three other direct competitors who are also operating the Drop Shipping model that you're looking to do? Because if you can, you validated it. One might be a bit of a coincidence. Two. Okay, fine. If you found three, and they're all operating successfully using this model, then you already know. Know that it's going to work. And so, yeah, those are the criteria that we'd look to to validate a niche perfect. I mean, it shows how much we research upfront. And the reason for that is so that when we do start running ads and start investing a lot into a business, we already know for a fact that the products that we're selling will be a success. So we're only putting money in at the point where we've already done the research. The alternative to it, if you don't want to do the research, is that you just pick a product on a whim, which I've done in the past, you start running ads, you suddenly waste a lot of money, because the products you realize aren't in demand, unless you've got really lucky, and so you can lose a lot of money wasting on ads. So the research takes some time. Obviously, it's in depth. There's nine different criteria that Lewis has been through there, but it saves you so much money and time when you actually launch the store. So anything else you'd add about to help people that are really trying to find the right products to sell? Yeah, I think one other thing in this, it's not something that's in our criteria, but it's something that we you know, I've learned from the hardware, and I can share a short story around my experience with it would be understanding and the platform policies, so things like Google ads and Shopify policies for items that you can use their payment system to sell. I once made the mistake of trying to sell CPR simulators, you know, at the first aid simulators and ECG training machines on the Shopify store. And interestingly, they weren't actual medical devices. It wasn't like an actual ECG machine. It was just a simulator to show, like to train you on how to use it. And I thought that my background in medical suppliers made this the perfect niche. And I thought that's what I'll do. I'll sell that however, Shopify automated system couldn't differentiate between the training equipment and the real thing, and that flagged it as a violation of their policies, and they just proposed my funds and said, Can't use Shopify payments anymore because I'd broken a policy. And said, what, you know, it was a gray area, right? I was selling a a training medical device, but not actually a medical device, and it took months of struggle to try and get the money back and using another payment processor. I mean, it taught me a valuable lesson about the importance of just choosing the right product and understanding the platform policies. And now I say, if anything is remotely fringe, you know, on the border of being illegal or on the border of being against policies, why take the risk? You want to sleep easily at night. You don't want to wake up wondering whether your account's been taken down. So just go into a niche that there's plenty of other people operating in that you can see work successfully. Take your slice of a growing pie and you can build multiple businesses in different niches that are well within the policy. So that would be my other one. If you want to sleep easy, don't break the rules exactly all about sleeping easy, and the answers to these questions are helping you to sleep easy, as long as you implement them into your business. Enjoying the podcast, we'd love to hear from you leave a comment or a review, and we might just feature it on an upcoming episode, also for detailed show notes and resources. Head to dropship, unlock.com forward slash podcast, if you found value from any episode of this podcast, please take just 10 seconds to leave us a quick five star review on your podcast app of choice, it helps us more than you could imagine. And who knows, you might just hear your comments on the show. Thanks for being part of our community. Your support helps us keep delivering a new episode every week. Okay? The next question in has come in from James. So James has asked, How has the E commerce landscape changed in the last few years, and what should new dropshippers be aware of as they enter the market? Yeah, it's a great question, James. I'd say the E commerce landscape has evolved significantly, certainly since I started. But what that's done is created even more opportunities for those who approach it in the right way. We've seen a massive shift in consumer behavior as well over the last few years, with more people than ever being comfortable shopping online now, and so this trend has only accelerated in recent years, and I think we'll just continue to do so. What's exciting though is that many UK based suppliers are now actually embracing drop shipping because it kind of opens up new channels for them. And they realize that with the demise of many high streets in the UK, the channels in which they can sell through needed to be expanded, and so that opens up new possibilities for high quality, fast shipping products. Now the key to success in this evolving landscape that we're in is having a solid strategy and the right guidance. It's not about competing with everyone, as we said, it's about finding your unique place in the market, taking your slice of the pike. So one big change that we've seen has been in consumer expectations. They now demand, faster shipping, better service, higher quality products, and all of these things is actually great news for those who are using our home turf advantage model, because it plays right into our strengths. The landscape might seem more complex than ever, but with the right community the right guidance, it's an incredible time to start. Start a drop shipping business right now. That's why we're so passionate about guiding our dropship unlocked members through this journey. We dive deep into the changes and how to really capitalize on them right now and take advantage, because it is the best time to start right now. So yeah, it's just all about turning these changes, these market shifts that are happening, into opportunities, and setting ourselves up for growth and success. We actually recorded an episode on this topic called the current state of dropshipping, which I believe was dropship unlocked Podcast, episode number 79 Yeah, glad we dedicated a whole episode to that one, because it is a common question that we get about, is it the right time to get started in dropshipping? What's the landscape like right now? So from our experience running our businesses continually throughout recording the podcast, we've obviously seen changes. There's been higher competition, but something that people don't talk about is the higher demand for products because the overall market is growing, and the changes in supplies being open to drop shipping, because they understand how it benefits their business. It's so much easier now to sign drop shipping suppliers than it used to be, because they understand the benefit of it. You haven't got to convince people why people are ready to buy their products online, and there's multiple different reasons. But I think I agree with you, Lewis. I think now, nowadays, it really helps to be sophisticated and understand drop shipping and the real strengths that you have as a retailer. And so by getting around a community by listening to the podcast, you're well ahead of the competition, and you'll be able to thrive in this market. Okay, so next question's in from Paul for today's episode. So Paul has asked, What are the top strategies that you recommend for driving traffic to a new online store without breaking the bank? Yep, I keep this one really simple, um, primarily Google Shopping ads. So these ads are the perfect solution to what we said around search intent marketing, because they target high intent shoppers, and they're very cost effective for that reason, especially when you're just starting. If you think of Google Shopping, if you want a new Barbecue. Where are you likely to go for it? You're probably going to search it on Google, new barbecue. Okay, so you search that at the top of the Google search results, you see some photos of the items and prices next to them. Now, if you're in the market for a 100 pound barbecue and there's 1000 pound one listed, you're probably not going to click it because it has the price there. So what that does is it qualifies the click before the click even comes to your site. So they have very high commercial intent. The clickers, the users who click and go through to your site, already know what the product looks like. They've likely searched for it themselves already, and they can see the price by the time they click and come to your website at that point, effectively, all you've got to do is convince them that you're the right place to buy it from. So it becomes a much easier type of traffic to convert, which means that you can spend more on it and get a lower cost per sale, higher conversion rate, and ultimately a higher return on your ad spend. So I'd say if you set a modest daily budget to test and optimize. Or once you're up and running and once you have an abundance of suppliers and products uploaded, I'm not saying start running ads when you've got two suppliers signed up and you you think, like James said, the biggest mistake we see is people think the solution to no sales is just spend more on ads no the solution to sale, to no sales is get more products that are in demand from customers and then trickle your ad spend across all of them so that they eventually start to tell you which ones are selling. And then you can ramp it up. Don't pour money into two unpopular brands in the hope that you'll make them popular. It's an expensive uphill battle to fight, and not one you even want to try and win. Once you've done that and you've got your ads running and you're making consistent sales, multiple sales per day, you can start turning your attention to content marketing and search engine optimization as well SEO, and do things like create blog posts or create guides and other content type video content that provides a value to your target audience as well. This helps improve your organic search rankings over time, and that's kind of the long game. You know, eventually we want to be ranking high on the Google search results as well as appearing in the app, we'll probably always run ads, because why wouldn't you? You want that top real estate on top of the search results page if you can get those sales to convert profitably? Now, great question. I've always used Google Shopping ads, and they are my primary source of conversions, and I've run those through a performance Max campaign with Google ads, and it's always helped me to keep a profitable ad spend up all the way through my time. Since starting my business, I've always had those ads running profitably. So that's the first way. The part of your question that was interesting, Paul, was how to make sure you don't break the bank. It's key that all of the foundations are in place before you start running ads. So if you're just thinking about the ads that you're running, make sure that you've got the right foundation in place first, and then your ads can really benefit off the back of that, because they are running and getting traffic to a site that can convert to products that are in demand. Okay, so some. Great question. So far, we've got a couple more. The next one's in from Simon, and he's asked, how important is customer service in dropshipping, and what are some best practices for keeping customers satisfied and coming back? Yeah, great question, Simon, customer service is crucial in dropshipping. You know, it's often the difference between a one time buyer and a loyal repeat customer, which is obviously what you want many of one of the biggest misconceptions about dropshipping is that you can't provide great customer service. But that's simply not true, especially with the home turf advantage model. The key is to build trust through prompt, clear communication. Now we teach our dropship unlocked members exactly how to do this efficiently, even with just a small team, maybe one virtual assistant and a couple of software tools, a practice that I've found incredibly effective is if you offer excellent post purchase support, so things like easy returns, proactive follow up, emails, quick issue resolution, that's going to go the extra mile, and that's going to mean that you get better reviews from customers, which social proof, when showcased, will help more customers make the decision to come and buy from you. We've also seen great results from personalizing communication using customer data, so for example, recommending related products or offering targeted discounts to customers through email marketing or through pop ups on the store. So by doing things like that, it enhances the customer experience and boosts their chance of them becoming repeat customers and getting repeat business from them. I know many people worry that providing this level of service is time consuming or expensive, especially if you're a one person show at the beginning, but with the right systems in place, which we cover in depth in our program, it actually becomes quite manageable and incredibly rewarding once you see the positive reviews starting to come in from customers. So just remember, in dropshipping, your customer service is your brand. It's how you stand out in a crowded market. It's why customers who are in that long line of customers would choose your market stand versus the next one, and that's why we put so much emphasis on it inside our dropship, and not masterclass. And I did realize how important it was when I first got started in dropshipping, but it's made my life so much better since understanding the importance of prioritizing it and really prioritizing customer service. Big thing for me has been incentivizing virtual assistants to get five star reviews for the site. So incentivize them in terms of paying them half a day's pay for every four or five star review that we receive. That's had a massive uptick in the amount of reviews you've received. It's also had a big impact on the service that customers receive, because the virtual assistants will now follow up after they receive their products until they're hungry for a review. But it also means that if there's any issues from the customers, they're being followed up by their virtual assistants, and they're having a much better service overall. We can nip any issues in the bud, and we can hammer home on people that are really happy to make sure they leave us a review. Okay, question in now from rosemary, and she's asked for someone who is feeling overwhelmed by the idea of starting an online business, what would you say to encourage them to take that first step? Well, I, firstly, I completely understand that feeling of overwhelm. I felt it too when I first started. But I mean, the The truth is that you don't have to figure it all out on your own. So Don't, don't, try not to worry about the concept of something that just isn't the case. The key to this is breaking it down into smaller, manageable steps. Now, in our dropship unlocks program, we guide members through each step, from choosing a niche right through to making their first sale through to even hiring a team and automating and outsourcing the day to day management of the business. Many people think that they need to have everything perfect before they start. But again, that's a myth. We talked about the minimum viable product, or as I call it, the minimum viable store concept. The most successful entrepreneurs are those who take action and then learn as they go. They don't just sit and procrastinate and wait for perfection that never comes. They just action. They get the product out, they get the store launched. One of the most valuable things that I found you can do is to join a community of like minded individuals, because the support, the motivation and the shared knowledge that you'll get in a community have just been game changers for so many of our members. We've seen it happen first time inside our dropship unlocked community, and it's kind of the antidote to overwhelm. When you are surrounded by other people who are on the same journey as you, maybe a few steps ahead, maybe a few steps behind, you feel like you're in the right place, and you don't feel as overwhelmed. So just try and remember every successful e commerce entrepreneur started because exactly where you are now, but the difference is that they took that first step, and so with the right guidance, that step doesn't have to be as daunting as it seems. That's right. I remember that feeling well as well rosemary, of not really knowing what to do, feeling overwhelmed, but knowing that you've got a big goal to achieve. You. And so I think the way for me that I reduced that overwhelm was by just surrounding myself by people that are on the same journey as me, or people that were a few steps ahead. Because by doing that, I could just resonate with the same feelings that other people were having, and it really helps you to overcome them. And by seeing people that are ahead of you, it allows you just to copy what they're doing, essentially understand the steps that they've taken to get to where you want to get to, and take the same steps, and if somebody else can achieve it. So can you just one step at a time? I think a quick way to actually get around people would be to pick up Lewis's book. So it's called the home turf advantage, and it's available@htabook.com and if you pick that up, you will get access to a community of people as well who have been reading that book and who are building their own e commerce business. So check it out if you're interested, because it makes such a difference. If you are feeling overwhelmed, it's all about getting around the right types of people. So you know how to build a successful high ticket drop shipping business? Yeah, absolutely. It's designed for people who are serious about building a successful, sustainable e commerce business. So if you're ready to fast track your journey and avoid the common pitfalls that we've talked about today, I'd encourage you to visit H T A book.com there you can learn more about how we can help you turn your E commerce dreams into reality. And who knows, maybe we'll be sharing your success story in a future episode of this podcast that should be the end goal of every podcast listener is to appear on the podcast talking to us about your success. And we've had a few of those recently. In fact, the last episode that we released was an episode with Suraj. So check that one out if you haven't already. And that's all the time we have for questions today. So thanks for getting your questions in. Thanks for your answers as well, Louis. We're also going to highlight a listener review, like we always do, and the 100th episode is going to be no exception. So this review that we've had in has come in from Apple podcasts, an apple podcast review, and it's coming from somebody called var R scars guard. That's their Apple name, so they've shared their thoughts, and they said inspiring and informative. I find Lewis and James's story so inspiring. This podcast really gives me the motivation to keep going with my E commerce journey. They're both so knowledgeable, and I have learned so much from them. I look forward to hearing more from them and enjoying more success in my own business as I implement the strategies and tips they share. Thank you so much for your review. We're so glad to hear that you've been enjoying the podcast, and we really appreciate being able to celebrate episode number 100 with you all. If you found value in today's discussion or any of the previous 100 episodes that you've listened to, then we'd really appreciate it if you haven't already, if you could leave us a quick review. It only takes a few seconds, but it means the world to us and it helps keep the podcast going. We're always looking to hear your thoughts, and we might feature your review in our next episode. Thanks for joining us on this episode of the dropship unlocked podcast. We hope you're walking away with insights and inspiration to kickstart your E commerce journey. Grab a copy of my book, the home of turf advantage@htabook.com it's a distilled guide based on real experience to help you build your E commerce venture. Don't forget to hit the subscribe button for more strategies and success stories. And if you like what you heard, a five star review would mean the world to us, and you might just get a shout out on an upcoming episode. And finally, thank you for deciding to spend your time with us today. We can't wait to bring you more insights on the next episode of the dropship unlocked podcast. You.